Help Wanted!!!

It is sleepy Sunday, and I am laying on the couch, updating my blog.  The weekend is the only time I seem to be able to update because I am so busy during the week, especially since the end of the school year is a month away!  


I have updated all of my pages (Classroom Organization, Behavior Management, etc.)  So feel free to take a peek!  As always, there will be MORE COMING SOON!


BUT...I also need your help and ideas....


This is my Math manipulative organization shelf.  However, it is only semi-organized.
 

The tubs are filled with certain math materials~ bears, counters, cubes, shapes, blocks, chains, etc.  However, my tubs aren't labeled.  And I haven't organized the tubs in any sort of way.  

HELP!!!  I NEED IDEAS!!!

I am so obsessed with Daily 5 and absolutely love what it has produced for me in my guided reading.  I have only scratched the surface of Daily 5 Math, but it is definitely something I want to implement into my classroom for next year.  So, I was seeing if anyone had advice on how to organize this space and these materials for that.  Or, maybe organize them in another way.

I am very open to new ideas so PLEASE SHOOT THEM MY WAY.

Thanks!    

Sight Words!

Learning sight words is pretty important in Kindergarten.  So, we try to make it fun, and give the kids incentives to learning and memorizing them.  Since our mascot is the Pirate, we put the first 20 sight words that we teach on a pirate ship.  PICTURE OF THE SHIP - COMING SOON!  


When they pass their Pirate Ship, I let them walk the plank!  Which means they get to stand up on the table (while holding my hand) and walk across the table and then jump off the edge into the ocean :).  The kids absolutely love this!  And it really encourages those other kiddos who maybe haven't passed theirs yet.  When they pass their ship, I also put their name on a die cut pirate ship and place it on my cabinet.  That way, we get to see who has passed!  

This is a close up of what my signs say.  After they pass their pirate ship, they move on to their rainbow words.  Once they pass their rainbow, they get their name put on a rainbow die cut and its placed on the cabinet also.  PICTURE OF RAINBOW- COMING SOON!

Check it Out!

I just posted some items under Guided Reading, Classroom Organization, Writing, and Behavior Management!  Feel free to check it out!  There are more items COMING SOON to each of those pages :).  

More Coming Soon

I just made my blog about a week ago, and haven't had much time during the week to update and post more ideas, so sorry for those who have checked out my blog.  


I would love to get more followers!  More on classroom organization and guided reading... 
                                                  COMING SOON (this weekend) :)

Egg Hunt!

On Thursday, we had our annual Kindergarten Egg Hunt!  The kids absolutely love it every year, and have so much fun!  We send a note home to our parents asking if their child can bring in 24 plastic eggs filled with a small sweet surprise.  We also send a list of three and four letter words attached to the note, and ask that the parents write, or tape the words onto the eggs.  During the hunt, the children find the eggs, then bring them over to an adult to read the words.  If they read them correctly, they get to put the eggs in their bag!

The kids getting ready to run wild and find some eggs! 

We always try to have the egg hunt outside in our field next to the school, weather permitting.  However, this year it was wet outside from the rain so we had it on our playground.

The Kindergarten teachers get to school a little early the morning of the hunt to go out and spread out the eggs and hide them :)

Beach Day

Every month we have a theme, and for March it was Ocean.  During the month of March we do a lot of lessons and activities in all subjects that are ocean based.  We do a lot with ocean animals and ocean life. At the end of the month, we have "Beach Day."  On this special day the kids get to travel to all of the Kindergarten classrooms and do a different ocean themed learning activity in each room.  They love this!  Its' great because they are doing fun themed activities that correlate with our state standards, and they also get to be in different classrooms and be with different teachers.


These are some of the things my students created for our Ocean unit...

  

In the middle and on the right, are our beautiful seashells.  When coloring our seashells we used ABC patterns!  We also wrote a beach poem- Come to the beach, come to play in the sun, come to splash in the water, come to have fun!

On the left is our Rainbow Fish.  I absolutely love the book and do a lesson with it every year doing our ocean unit.  The kids colored their rainbow fish using a ABCD pattern.  I cut out sparkly scales and gave each student two.  They got to keep one, but pick someone in the classroom room to share the other with.  Then, they got to glue their sparkly scale on their fish.

We also made sea turtles and crabs.  I let the kids choose which they wanted to do.

On the left is a picture of our jellyfish that we made.  We used paper bowls, construction paper, tissue paper, and ribbon.  

  

Finally got a new background!

It took me more than a few days, and a lot of frustration to finally figure out how to get a cute background for my blog.  Thank goodness for fellow teacher bloggers who already knew how, otherwise I might have given up!  Will be posting pictures and ideas soon, once I get the rest of the kinks figured out over the weekend :)